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Why I Love…Newsnight

Jeremy Paxman
  • Posted at 3:26pm
  • 12 November 2007
  • by SimonHumphreys-RT
  • 2 comments

It's last orders down the pub. Much of the known world is retiring to bed.

You've had a busy day. You have awakened to the Today programme, read a daily paper, caught the lunchtime news. You might have come home to the six o'clock bulletin and surfed through BBC News 24. You may even have snatched the occasional news summary throughout the day on Magic FM. You're tired but well-informed. Under such circumstances, it is perhaps not unreasonable to ask, what exactly is the point of Newsnight?

For over 25 years this bastion of news and current affairs has straddled the late-evening schedules like a cantankerous afterthought. Peddling its eclectic brand of analysis and discussion with verve and distinction, it has always offered a slightly alternative and genuinely global slant on the day's events. It invariably features a stellar chorus line of apologetic politicians and itinerant rent-a-mouths.

In an unchanging format of remarkable consistency, it serves up nightly its familiar recipe: a political bouillabaisse of interviews and panel discussions of earnest individuals desperate to be heard. There are foreign stories not covered elsewhere, the odd arts item, plus the quirky filler at the end of the programme. And, of course, the opinionated investigation by one of its in-house eccentrics - such as Michael Crick - frequently illustrated with naff graphics and even naffer models made out of cornflake packets.

On Friday, for dessert, there is the cultural mayhem of Newsnight Review, a now established interloper that draws the week's offering to a chaotic and stimulating conclusion. It is a heady mix before lights out.

For the true addict, though, it is the human dimension that enthrals. Where else would you find such a panoply of the worst-dressed set of presenters and reporters in the known televisual universe? New babe Emily Maitlis, impenetrable Gavin Esler, feisty Kirsty Wark, wistful Martha Kearney.

All are slightly uncomfortable, you feel, stepping into the great man's shoes. Because, essentially, this is the Jeremy Paxman show, and for all the myriad charms and talents of the pretenders to his crown, one is always slightly disappointed when he's not the frontman. It's like the English cricket team playing without Freddie Flintoff.

His grey, thoughtfully kempt bouffant quiff perches above an increasingly craggy face. His louche, dishevelled demeanour is furnished with an enviable repertoire of quizzical stares and furrowed eyebrows. Paxman interrupts, cajoles, sneers. He endlessly repeats questions, articulates his disbelief, then lounges back in utter incredulity. The latest in a long line of politicians - each of them grovellingly vying to use his forename - is skewered in another Newsnight masterclass grilling. It is compulsive viewing.

Authoritative, non-conformist, challenging, sceptical, investigative, middle brow, idiosyncratic; Newsnight is all of these, but it is also fun and not afraid to be intelligent. From its bombastic opening theme music to its final peremptory perusal of photocopies of the following morning's newspapers, weekday evenings would be poorer without it. It's better than Horlicks. Long may it reign.

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Comments

  • Posted on 18 February 2009
  • at 12:16pm
  • by Syb Alias

It would be sad if ever Newsnight was to be removed from the schedules. Paxman is brilliant most of the time. I still feel that he does not always give women a fair crack of the whip in their replies to him. Unless it is Harriet Harperson. Paxman always makes her look the fool. Great! But Newsnight Review has gone down the pan as far as I am concerned...Not nearly as good now.

  • Posted on 18 February 2009
  • at 2:02am
  • by O

One day, inevitably, the great and good overseers will take Newsnight away from us and Britain will have lost something of real value. Let us treasure Newsnight, and Jeremy Paxman, while they are still with us. Amen to SimonHumphries-RT.

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